Tag: epic fantasy
-
The 3 Tiers of Fantasy World-Building
Last week, I wrote a post about genre writing and it got me thinking about how to know when a book has enough world-building and if it has enough of the right kind of world building. (The post was a setting study for Monsters of Verity if you wanted to check it out.) Rather than…
-
15 Fantasy Books For The Curious Reader
Most of my regulars on the blog are presumably avid fantasy readers like myself, but my romance reading challenge has made me wonder what books I might recommend for those who aren’t. After all, fantasy can certainly be an intimidating genre to step into. It’s incredibly difficult to find standalone novels, or to find books…
-
Setting Study: Mistborn’s The Final Empire
The second novel of Brandon Sanderson’s career, The Final Empire, is a high fantasy book taking place in the titular Final Empire, led by the tyrannous, immortal Lord Ruler. Rebellions of the past have always failed, but rebellions of the past never had Kelsier, Vin, or their team of Mistings and Mistborn. As usual, these…
-
Five Branches of Magic Systems (Revisited)
Half a year ago, I wrote a blog post about different kinds of magic systems, hoping to be informative, not expecting it to continue garnering views in the way that it has. I certainly wouldn’t call it a throwaway post, but in the months since I’ve published it, I’ve come to realize that, although I…
-
Book Review: The Rage of Dragons (The Burning #1)
I am going to be completely upfront about my reading preferences. As a general rule, I don’t read self-published works. There are too many choices as it stands just by shopping in bookstores (self-published books rarely get into bookstores). And there’s just something to be said about looking at a physical copy of a book,…
-
Discussing Fantasy Word Counts
When someone first begins writing books, one of the first things they learn is that page count is far, far less important on the writing end of novels than it is for the reading end. Books are rarely the same dimensions, whether that be in length, height, or both. Line spacing, margins, font and font…
-
Writing Resources for Fantasy Authors
While I was working on my current project–which is a high fantasy piece–there were a lot of resources I found myself pulling from in order to make the story as realistic, consistent, and good as possible. It seemed like a good idea to me to put all, or at least the most important, of those…
-
The Red(dit)est of Hot Takes
Today I wanted to try a new type of blog, one that’s based off some fun videos some of my favorite YouTubers have posted. Primarily, I got the idea from Fantasy News host Daniel Greene, who asks his viewers for some hot takes that he reacts to. So I went on Reddit, looked up some…
-
Choosing the Opacity of Your World-Building
Among the multitude of differences that separate the practice of reading from the art of writing, especially when it comes to the fantasy/science fiction genres, one of the hardest to reconcile is that of world-building. For a reader, the setting cannot take center stage. Even for someone like me, who loves to explore new settings…
-
Five Types of Magic Systems
Although magic is not a requirement for fantasy settings, they are a staple of the genre. When it comes to how new and unique a novel’s magic system is, well, they can be just as varied as fantasy as a genre. Yet there are a few categories that most magic systems either fall into or…
Katie Bachelder 